


First Team Minutes

by kaixo (ballpoint)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, The Ache in Your Legs Footy Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2656157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/kaixo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt for footiefanfest :Alberto keeps asking Javier about his twin, what it's like to be a twin and if he can meet Victor. Javier gets a little apprehensive as he doesn't want Alberto to like Victor more than him because he's cooler and funnier than Javier is. Alberto reassures Javier that he'll always like him better (and maybe even like-like him.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Team Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt answered to the spirit of the law if not the letter of the law?
> 
> I might change the title when I think of a better one. All lies, all fiction, please don't sue.  
> The hat referred to in this fic is this one:http://kopzone.tumblr.com/post/103201616060/training-for-crystal-palace

As they stomped off the training field, and into the stifling warmth of the dressing room, Javier rubbed his hands together, in order for them to get warmer faster. 

Alberto tugged his LFC bucket shaped beanie from his head, with gloved fingers, his face ruddy from the brisk weather outside. 

“ _Brrr_ ,” he shuddered, tugging off his gloves. “So. Cold. _Dios_ , I’ve never felt this cold.”

“It _is_ cold,” Javier sat on the bench, tugging at the laces of his shoes. “Liverpool is not like Madrid- Víctor calls me and teases me about it all the time. Offers to send a one way ticket,” the corner of Javier’s mouth curved at the thought. “Every. Time.”

“Víctor? He’s your brother, a... twin, right?” Alberto asked toeing off his shoes. “What’s that like?”

Javier tugged at his socks, after training in the drizzle outside. Now sodden, stinking with sweat and ugh- disgusting. Wrinkling his nose, he rolled them up and stuffed them in his kit bag, wiping his hands on his training bottoms. The question danced around his head, as they shed their clothes, wrapped their towels around their waists, slipped their feet in rubber slippers as they moved from the changing rooms into the showers, the air steamy and close. 

“I don’t understand?”

“You know, you just look and there’s another you,” Alberto stuck his head under the shower, as he ran his hands through his hair. “Someone born technically at the same time, not older- and you’re experiencing things together. That has to be something, right?”

“I guess,” Javier rolled his shoulders, “I have never questioned it. It just was, and now is.”

“What’s he like?” 

“Who? Víctor? He’s- well. Like me, sort of. I’m better looking though,” Javier shot Alberto a grin, as he squeezed a dollop of shower gel in his palm. “Trust me.”

***

Alberto, being Alberto, kept tugging on the subject like a terrier with a bone. In addition to that, with those strange follow me I’m- a- team-captain-in-training ways, he got Mario and Emre to join in.

“A twin, eh?” Mario asked, as they sat at the tables in the rec room, Emre eyeing the meal on his tray with suspicion. “What’s he like?”

“Uh-” Javier said, searching for his English. He’d improved- not as much as Alberto had - but Alberto was always bursting with things to say, scarily determined to level the learning curve as quickly as possible. His aim was to do an interview in English, around the January transfer window, because he chafed at his interviews being translated, frustrated at being rendered mute. In contrast, Javier didn’t mind taking the scenic route to fluency, but that was the thing hanging around with Alberto though- he tended to drag you along to places where you never thought about going.

“He’s a footballer like- me?” Javier pointed at himself, Emre nodded his understanding and encouraged, Javier continued in English. “He plays for Alcorcón B, Segunda B.”

“He doesn’t visit?”

“He has his own season,” Javier said offhandedly, “and besides, Liverpool is cold! He’d rather me visit him.”

“Position?”

“Delant-”

“Forward,” Alberto interjected helpfully, nudging Javier’s arm with his elbow. “But what’s he like?”

“Like you?” Mario wagged his finger at Javier. “We can’t have two Javiers here, one is enough!”

Javier lifted two fingers in Mario’s direction; he’d been around the English players long enough to know what two fingers in the shape of a V meant, and Mario did the Italian version with his thumb between his middle and ring fingers. They all shared a laugh, loud and raucous enough for Adam Lallana to glance at them for a moment from his magazine, before Mario looked at the oversized face watch on his wrist and sprang to his feet. “I have to go, see you all tomorrow, eh? Emre, you ready?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Emre got to his feet, and caught up with Mario, throwing a wave in Javier and Alberto’s direction, over his shoulder.

***

“Two Javiers wouldn’t be bad,” Alberto said later, looking up from his menu. A novelty this time, just them alone; what with Jose and Suso on their way from somewhere, and their partners off getting to know the city.

“I- well, Víctor isn’t like me-” and Javier cut himself off as the waitress presented herself to them, pad and pencil in hand. They gave their orders and decided to pass on sangrias because it was still a training day, and stuck to orange juice instead.

“Yes, we’re twins, but we’re are our own people, even though people don’t see it that way,” Javier leaned across the table, his eyes on Alberto’s face; one that he knew as well as his by now, after the amount of time they spent together these few months. The way his eyes disappeared into carets when he found something deeply amusing, his upturned nose wrinkling at a point, teamed with puckish grin and ginger whiskers. 

“It’s like you and Diego - he’s your brother, but people treat you like different people, because he’s _older_ , and wouldn’t buy you the same things, all a matched set like they did with us. Because they’d assume that you liked different things, yes? Not us, and it didn’t help that we got into the same sport. Besides-”

Again, Javier cut himself off as their meals were brought to them. As requested protein (chicken), with carbs (a spicy rice dish and corn on the cob) with lashings of vegetables on the side. Alberto, with his (not so) secret fondness for potatoes asked for a side dish of spicy fries with salsa. 

“Besides?” Alberto took knife and fork to his meat, shredding it. Apart from training under cold skies, Alberto _lived_ in short sleeved shirts with funky designs on the front. Today’s wonder had an oversized picture of a hyper lifelike spider plastered across his chest. All the better to show his tattoos, which although he never spoken about them, Alberto seemed silently proud of them, and it was right that he should be, because - although Javier never felt the need for the tattooist’s needle himself- they were well done. 

“It’s nice to break away, to have something _different_ from him for once.”

“You were on different teams in Madrid though,” Alberto pointed between bites of fries and chunky salsa, his tones reasonable. “Atlético Madrid vs Alcorcón B? Not even in the same league.”

“Be it La Liga or Segunda B- we were still in the same city, with the same surname, and no matter how the interview begins _that_ question comes up.”

“Ah,” Alberto grinned at him, his voice warm with sympathy. “ _That_ question. How you could have been at Real Castilla with the aim of breaking into Real Madrid in the future, but you gave all of that up-”

“As if it had been a decision,” Javier shook his head, still surprised at the reporters’ _surprise_ about a decision he had made over a decade ago. “Which was one of the many reasons why I decided against the Rayo Vallecano loan, even if it were for first team minutes in La Liga. No matter what I did, the interviews would always be about an arrangement we made as a family years ago. Weird, and no-one’s business but our own. At least it’s different here.”

“Now they just ask us about our team’s lack of form,” Alberto said ruefully, stabbing at his chicken, their lack of wins and position on the table a concern. 

“I’ll take talking up the team and our results over talking about Víctor anyway. I’m surprised they don’t think to interview him- outside of the stupid questions about me- he’s cooler and funnier than I am. He’d charm the reporters if they gave him breathing room... What?” 

“He’s cooler and funnier than you?” 

He went and made that slip out, stupid. To save himself from answering, Javier stuffed his mouth with food on purpose. Reinforcements in the shape of as Suso and Jose rolled up with shopping bags in hand. “Finally!” Jose greeted, “I thought we’d never get through.”

“He spent over an hour deciding on which pair of shoes to buy,” Suso shook his head. “Lost the receipt for the ones he wanted to return, too. So much fun. Hey, spicy fries,” Suso scooped up a few with sauce before chomping into them. “ _So_ good. Move over, Alberto.”

Alberto did, and Javier hoped that would be the subject of Víctor for a while.

***

The next match rolled on like the other matches. More good than bad, but the result could have been better.

If nothing else, Javier told himself as he stood under the shower after the match- the force of the water from the shower pummelling at the knots in his muscles- he was getting first team minutes, in a different system that tested his capabilities. The league play faster that he expected, the language strange, but football was football. The English referee calling him over and whipping out a yellow card above his head over a tackle he deemed too reckless. Another reason to learn this damned English, just so that he could have attempted to argue his way out of the card, although the English referees seemed not to have any truck with that here, with their insistence on having the game ‘flow’ freely. 

“When I first came here,” Javier remembered Jose telling them once, over dinner, “there was no thing as a _foul_. The calls have gotten stricter over the years.” 

To Javier, he thought about it as all relative, all learning experience. The papers hadn’t lied about the game being faster and more physical here, but his technical skills were valued just as highly. He closed his eyes, wiped the water from his face, and changed into his Liverpool branded training togs. As a team, they were directed to their train, tickets in hand, and Javier had his headphones in his ears as soon as his butt landed on a seat, looking through the window, watching the world zip by. 

“I can never get used to the grey skies,” Alberto murmured from beside him his eyes fixed on the weather outside. Javier dragged his headphones off, placed them around his neck, as he faced his friend. 

“You wake up, and it seems like twilight all the time.”

“It’s autumn,” Javier said, “England seems to feel like it more than other places.”

“What would Víctor say?” Alberto smiled, dimpled, his hair sticking up, his eyes merry. 

“I don’t know,” Javier said, his annoyance making his voice deceptively neutral as he made to drag his headphones back on his ears, but Alberto stopped his movement by pressing his fingers against Javier’s forearm. 

“Javi,” he said, his Andalusian accent making it sound more like _chavi_ than the soft _shavi_ that he was accustomed to from other Spaniards. “If teasing you about Víctor makes you upset, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.” That was Alberto, softening the heavy moments with a touch, and he could not be mad, damn it. 

“No, it’s -” Javier began, leaning his head against the cushioned head rest. “I love Víctor, and I liked training with him, enough to want to keep playing together in the _cantera_ when we could have played apart. But-” his voice trailed off as he took in their surroundings. The small train compartment, and due to ticketing arrangements he and Alberto shared a carriage with Philippe Coutinho and Ricky Lambert. Philippe tapping something on his ipad, and Ricky listening to music, the two pairs separated by a table, and Alberto’s body pressing into his before it rocked away, in beat to the sway of the train, its wheels _clickety clack_ on the rails. 

“But?”

“How are you finding England?”

Alberto titled his head, and stilled, for a few moments, as if he were a dog puzzling an order for the first time. 

“I like it,” Alberto drawled thoughtfully, before his words sped to their usual pitch. “I mean, my first weeks were a bummer but I got over it, it’s - I’m glad I’m here, despite how it all ended with Sevilla and began here. I’m playing in a new league, with new teammates, it’s a new adventure, yes? Even with my family here, it’s different, because the situation is different, and less my connection to them and more their connection to _me_. Just even learning English faster than them - because _I have to_ \- makes the distance further and stronger in a way,” Alberto frowned, stroking his bearded chin. “I think that sounded better in my head.”

“No, it sounds right. Yes, it does,” Javier affirmed. “It’s like that with me, I’m glad I’m here too, and even though my family visits, they don’t stay because of the younger ones back home. I feel like I’m my own person, with my own apartment, and even learning English, I feel myself becoming different-” he rolled his eyes, and Alberto nodded, two foreigners in a foreign league fighting together. 

“It’s selfish - but I’m glad Víctor isn’t here to share that. That- as long as I’m here, we’ll both have the chance to grow separately, and when I go back-” his heart felt a little thump against his sternum as he looked at Alberto’s face, and swallowing, Javier tried again. “When I do go back to Atléti- I- we’ll be more _brothers_ in the public’s eye, and further down the road in our careers. Our identities will be separate, our fortunes changed- and if he came over here- it wouldn’t be the same thing and besides,” Javier finished with a toss of his head, “he can be cooler and funnier than me in Madrid, not here.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I can’t see him taking the brunt of Jose’s jokes like you can.”

Javier smiled, because Jose was harmless. _Estar como una cabra_ \- true- but harmless. 

“We've gotten to know _you_ first, Javi,” Alberto continued, “and we like you, so Víctor would be compared to you- when we finally get to meet him. To be fair, Víctor has always been compared to you, no matter what you think or do. You chose to opt out of it with Real, to be with him, but comparisons always catch up with us yes? Víctor so far, well... You’re with Atlético, and on loan here. If you wanted to be strict about it, so far it can be argued that you’re the better one, that he wouldn’t want to meet us because of _you_.”

“Only you,” Javier muttered after a few heartbeats, “would make me feel sorrier for my cooler, funnier twin.”

“I’ll have to see for myself if he’s cooler and funnier, but I know you’d have him beat.” Alberto’s grin blinded in the twilight, his eyes squinted with amusement with faint lines stamped at their corners, and Javier raised his hand to touch Alberto’s jaw, only to remind himself that he could be called back to Atlético at any point in the season, and how first team minutes mattered above all, because starting XI with _Los Colchoneros_ had always been the plan. Diego Simeone seeing his development and making decisions for the next season with Javier Manquillo in mind always the aim. With more effort that he would ever admit it took, Javier formed his fingers into a fist, and jerked his hand away. 

Alberto- with his palpable emotion and good humour- was a danger in how he made Javier feel things, how he could _change_ things, and he was that sort of person who didn’t know it, or if he did, would downplay the importance of it. 

“I will- I’ll ask him and see what he says. I can’t promise anything.”

“Like you say, he’s in his season, no? We can wait. Just, any time before you go back to Atlético anyway, we can sic Jose on him, and see how he makes out.”

Ah, Javier laughed, because that was so mean, such a _sibling_ thing to do. 

“Yeah,” Javier nodded, before he slipped his headphones on, before he did something stupid like - something stupid. Alberto unknowingly let him off the hook, by burrowing into his coat, popping the collar up, and after a huge yawn (it had been a long weekend, away matches always were), he propped his head on Javier’s shoulder, and without fanfare just dozed off. 

Javier looked at Philippe who had his headphones on, dozing off, head on Ricky’s shoulder. Ricky still listening to his music, his eyes now on his kindle. After a moment, and on a sigh, Javier gathered Alberto against him with a one armed hug, his eyes on his surroundings outside. The sky now moving from twilight to a purple blue, the features of the English countryside fading into the reflection of himself and the sleeping Alberto staring back at him. Alberto’s perennial frown relaxed, but his lines still marked on his face- a result of running in the strong Andalusian sun from seven years of age till now. Javier’s own face still placid, not giving away anything. 

_First team minutes_ , the thought now a mantra, something to hold on to, as Javier rested his forehead against the window, tangling his fingers in Alberto’s free hand before nodding off to sleep himself. 

FIN


End file.
